Okay, maybe I’ve missed a memo or something, but can someone tell me: what exactly is a new age drink? Nothing in the aisle stood out as being particularly new-agey.
Category: Strange World
Invasion of the Lenticular Clouds!
I wasn’t expecting to see more after my last post on lenticular clouds. As I said, they’re (usually) rare in this area. But as I left the office Friday evening, I pulled onto the freeway and nearly freaked out at what I saw: A line of three smooth, layered clouds running above the ridge of the mountains to the north of Saddleback, and two more less-defined clouds picking up south of the peaks. I took the first exit and headed for a spot where I knew I could get an unobstructed view: a park in the Quail Hill area. (Knollcrest, I think.)
It was near sunset, and I was in a hurry to get some photos (not to mention a better chance to look at them!) before the light faded. You can see that the sun had already dropped behind the hill on which I was standing.
If you look at the horizon in the wide view, near the left at what looks like the base of the hills, you can see the orange balloon at the Great Park. I’m fairly sure they’d stopped taking people up by then, though I did see it airborne during my walk at lunch.
I’ve enhanced the contrast on these next few images, all cropped from the same photo to show close-ups (relatively speaking) of the three clouds:
I’m going to do something unusual here, and post an original-resolution copy of that contrast-enhanced photo, just ’cause it’s so cool. It compressed really well, to 170K, but beware—it’s still a 2,567 pixel–wide image.
Tumbleweed Cluster
Tumbleweeds tend to collect along roadsides and fences in Orange County, dropping their seeds for the next year. This can lead to some spectacular clusters of car-sized puffballs of plant.
SR-55 off-ramp at Edinger
In a few weeks*, these will dry out, turn brown, and get picked up by the Santa Ana winds. They’ll roll along the road until they hit a fence, or perhaps fetch up against another cluster, and the cycle will start all over again.
* Or possibly already — I took this photo about 3 weeks ago, and with this past week’s heat wave, I wouldn’t be surprised at all.
Santa Monic-odd
In early August, we went up to Santa Monica to visit my brother and his colleagues as they returned to Florida from Wikimania 2007 in Taipei… with a 10-hour layover at LAX.
We carpooled with my parents, and arrived while the group was still stuck in customs. So we wandered around the Santa Monica Promenade and pier for a bit. Not surprisingly, there were some strange things about, like this turtle-themed drinking fountain.
Then there was this sign, on the Johannes van Tilburg Building, which I couldn’t quite decide how to take. “Free Will?” “Free Willy?”
The most disturbing was probably this mash-up of two movies on one of the many theaters on the promenade:
Is the American public ready for that film?
There are topiaries sculpted into the forms of dinosaurs scattered along the promenade. This stegosaurus came out the best:
As I mentioned, we did wander out to the Santa Monica Pier after a bit. Nothing terribly odd, just a couple of photos to set the scene:
Strange Sights of Comic-Con
I wanted to call this “Oddball Comic-Con,” but decided that might be a little too close.
Stormtrooper Elvis has become such a fixture that I almost didn’t bother taking a picture of him when I saw him this year… but then I noticed his pose, and the Sauron statue in the background.
There were a number of people walking around with “Free Hugs” signs, most of them women, but a few men. I never actually saw someone take one of them up on the offer, though.
On the subject of “Free” signs, I found it amusing that the Bantam Dell booth was trying to attract people with a hand-lettered cardboard sign proclaiming, “FREE!”
At one point I looked upward at the ceiling of Ballroom 20. With The Dark is Rising being made into a movie, I saw this lighting fixture and cross-beams and immediately thought of the Sign of Fire.
This guy had the ultimate cheap costume: A roll of tape. He just took every freebie flyer that was handed to him, and taped it to himself.
There’s apparently a band called CKY. Some of their merchandise manages to work the name into a rather rude saying…
There was a group of women in identical red dresses, with identical hairdos, and identical shoes. I saw a few of them wandering the floor on Saturday, but didn’t realize just how many there were until we left the convention center for dinner, and saw them crossing the street.
Edit: 
Mystery solved? The Resident Evil panel featured 17 Milla Jovovich doubles wearing her iconic red dress. This looks like more than 17, and the dresses don’t seem to be ripped in the right place, but this could be them.
Continued in Strange Sights of San Diego.
Comic-Con: Filling in the Gaps
Some random thoughts and anecdotes about Comic-Con that didn’t make it into other posts:
It’s amazing that out of (reportedly) 140,000 people, you’re virtually guaranteed to run into people you know. For instance, I knew in person 8 people besides the two of us who were definitely going to the convention. Without planning, I ran into 6 of them, as well as 2 people who I didn’t know were attending. Katie and I even accidentally ran into each other once. I’m sure I ran into people I’ve met online, but just didn’t recognize them on sight.
Overheard near a coffee shop one morning in San Diego:
20ish man #1: I’m so wasted. I can’t work like this.
20ish man #2: Dude, you make coffee!
Nothing as drastic as Aeire’s story of nearly getting trampled, but I sustained a number of minor injuries over the course of the event:
- Left knee, bruised while walking into a traffic barrier concealed by the flow of people (Wednesday).
- Right forearm, bruised twice catching a backpack strap (Thursday).
- Left hand, bruised (unknown).
- Also, Katie: Left thumbnail pulled back and bleeding, catching a backpack strap (Friday).
Conclusion: Backpacks are dangerous 😉
I walked out onto this balcony Friday afternoon and took some pictures looking out across the street. At the time, there were some teenage girls sitting on that ledge off to the left. It’s maybe 4 feet deep, and some of them had scooted out past the balcony, one of them standing up. When I came back later to get a picture of the ledge (how creepy would I have looked taking a picture of a group of teenage girls?), the door to the balcony was locked. I’m guessing security wasn’t happy.
When eating out at a restaurant, ask about the portion sizes before you order. The food at Bandar was very good, but we were each served enough food for three people. With no refrigerator or microwave in our hotel room, we couldn’t save the leftovers. The waste was saddening.
Panels I attended:
Thursday: TwoMorrows, Paramount Pictures, Lost.
Friday: Spider-Man cartoon (2nd half) and Neil Gaiman Spotlight. Babylon 5: The Lost Tales.
Saturday: Quick Draw, Buffy 10th Anniversary Screening. (edit: fixed link)
Sunday: My Dad Makes Comics (2nd half), Fables.
Panels Katie attended:
Thursday: Making Fiends, Paramount Pictures, Lost.
Friday: The Mist/Halloween, Jim Henson, Babylon 5: The Lost Tales.
Saturday: Pushing Daisies, tried to get into Heroes but got locked out, Battlestar Galactica, Buffy screening.
Sunday: Cages Talk Comics, Right at Your Door/Dragon Wars, Pathology.
*whew!* Almost done. I just need to post quotes and oddities. Well, and finish labeling the photo gallery.
Pumpkin Moon
We were driving home from visiting relatives this evening, and noticed a dull orange ellipse on the horizon, appearing and disappearing between trees. It didn’t take long to realize it was the moon, just beginning to rise.
As the freeway twisted and turned, and we went through areas full of houses, retail centers, and trees, we lost and regained sight of it. The moon illusion was in full effect, making it look huge, plus the bottom edge was flattened, just like the sun at sunset—only you can look at the moon much longer. (Well, except when you’re driving.)
It rose through a bank of clouds or haze, climbing through dark bands, and slowly turned from orange to yellow, then turned paler. By the time we got home at 10:00, it had assumed its normal circular shape (with a tiny bit shaved from the upper right, since it was a day past full), and didn’t look particularly bigger than usual.
We don’t get to see the moon so close to the horizon very often. For one thing there are mountains to the east, but more importantly there are buildings all around. As we saw with the drive home, it doesn’t take much height to block the horizon from view. By the time we got home, roughly an hour past moonrise, it was just visible over the tops of the nearby buildings from our balcony.